Scenario Planning

Uncertainty in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Changing the Rules of Magic The deepest level of scenario planning requires a release of certainty. Not only is “lock-in a myth” (see What Scenario Planners Can Learn from Uncertainty in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Myth of Lock-in) …

What Scenario Planners Can Learn from Uncertainty in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Resurrection and Consequences Like the character Buffy, the show proved resilient in the face of change. Following cancelation, Team Buffy announced that Buffy the Vampire Slayer would return to the air for at …

Glorificus and Black Swans Season Five introduced a major existential threat to Sunnyvale in the form of the goddess Glorificus, better known as Glory. Glory might be better categorized a Black Swan than a predictable uncertainty. Although the team had encountered gods before, such as …

The Myth of Lock-in James Ogilvy, writing in Strategy + Business states that, “The old production economy was predictable because it operated in the realm of necessity; it produced goods and services people needed, and those were relatively stable. The new economy plays in the …

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Uncertainty: An Introduction In March of 1603, King James I (James VI of Scotland) ascended the English throne. After many years of rule by Queen Elizabeth I, England faced many, as Shakespeare calls them in Sonnet CVII “incertainties.” The uncertainties …

Scenario Planning for Human Resources Proud to have an article on scenario planning published in India’s premier HR publication. If we all knew exactly how the future would turn out, there would be no need to negotiate plans. We would simply accept the future and …

Brexit Uncertainties The vote by the UK to part ways with the European Union (EU) has created a potential for disruptive uncertainties that will invalidate any long-range scenarios based that are exploring futures related to business and government. Need for New Scenarios There are likely …

2016 Uncertainties In April of 2015, the McKinsey Global Institute published a report titled: ‘The four global forces breaking all the trends.’ I would argue that what McKinsey defined were not forces or disruptions, but new trends — which simultaneously, with related causation or not, …

Scenarios and Climate Change I was listening to BBC World Service via my local NPR station (KUOW). They were running an interesting story on The science behind ocean acidification. It stuck me as they were discussing the economics of an ocean populated by jellyfish and grasses, that …

Back to the Future II: 5 Reasons it is Hard to Predict the Future Many posts today are focusing on what the Back to the Future II team got right and wrong about the future. I don’t think as a percentage of speculation, they were …

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